Future Prosperity
by Mir Queen
Summary: MINISTRY MARRIAGE LEGISLATION SHOCK. Usually The Pygmy Post stood four pages. Today, it featured an enormous, twenty-page article… When a marriage law shocks the wizarding world, Hogwarts stands against it. Many are freed through their efforts, but Minerva McGonagall fails to escape the new law's parameters, leading to unusual personal choices and an unexpected future. (AU)


Disclaimer: I do not own nor make any profit from _Harry_ _Potter_. It belongs to J.K. Rowling, etc.

A/N: Inspired after reading too many marriage law fics. I don't usually like them, but you can't stop a plot bunny when it sinks its teeth in. Plus I am so tickled to constantly write about Minerva. Love that woman something _fierce_.

For now, this story takes a backseat to my others. Eventually, I will work on it more in-depth, but not right now. *sigh*

 **Chapter 1: Disestablishment**

* * *

Shortly after dinner in the Great Hall, with the students petering out to their commons rooms and professors retiring to the staff room for one of their last staff meetings of the school year, Minerva McGonagall moved at a brisk, biting clip with nary a glance at the lingering students around her as she marched towards the staffroom, a mangled copy of the Daily Prophet clenched in her left fist and a look of pure rage stamped on her features.

Finally reaching it, the witch slammed the door against the wall in her fury as she entered.

"What's gotten your knickers in a knot?" Rolanda Hooch commented irreverently, waving her wand to close the door with a frown toward the Head of Gryffindor house.

"They've enacted a marriage law!" the deputy headmistress snapped viciously, turning to glare at the staff around her as she held up the late edition of the Prophet she'd just received and tossed it violently onto the table beside Pomona.

" _What!_ " Sybil Trelawney, Irma Pince, Bathsheda Babbling, and Charity Burbage all turned to face the black-haired witch in shock. Being in their twenties and thirties, it was easily conceivable the four witches would be affected by the new law, leading them to scramble around the dropped newspaper, its blaring headline simple and horrible.

MINISTRY MARRIAGE LEGISLATION SHOCK

 _NEW LAW SET TO TRANSFORM WIZARDING COMMUNITY_

"At least you'll be exempt, Minerva," Rolanda remarked, a kind of relief in her voice at the thought. Minerva McGonagall forced into marriage didn't sound right in any sense of the phrase. She had just been widowed not a year prior, it wouldn't be fair to her. Besides that, this _was_ the same witch who kept her maiden name upon marriage. Arranged marriages were not in the formidable witch's personal curriculum.

"Oh? Will I be?" the deputy headmistress responded in a scathing growl, "And why, _pray tell_ , would I possibly be _exempt_ from the Ministry's useless interventions?"

"Marriage laws have only ever ranged from twenty to forty years old," Bathsheda Babbling frowned at the other witch's attitude. "I grant you, we haven't had a marriage law for well over two-hundred years, but still, that's the standard! And you're approaching fifty, Minerva. What on earth are you infuriated about?"

"This _abysmally ignorant law_ includes witches from the tender age of seventeen up to mighty age of _sixty-seven_!" Minerva spat in fiery heat, gravel in her voice as she turned to face her colleague, bent forward in agitation with both hands planted on her slim hips.

"Sixty-seven!" Sybil squeaked in shock, falling back into her seat as they all stared up at the furious transfiguration professor.

Before another response could be made, three owls arrived pecking at the staffroom windows, each carrying a rolled newspaper. Closest to the window, Severus Snape waved his wand to allow the birds entry. Three of the staff members picked up their subscription of the very same Daily Prophet edition Minerva had tossed down several minutes earlier.

"Every woman on this staff is caught in it," Minerva spat out, newly infuriated at the unhappy surprise in her colleagues' eyes as they surveyed the news for themselves. "Not _one_ of us is even over _fifty_ years old!"

"B-but… Merlin's beard, such an age!" Filius spouted, a concerned look in his eyes. "They can't expect witches of that age to bear children, can they?"

"I don't see anything about having children in the Prophet," Septima Vector replied from her seat by the fireplace, her eyes roving every inch of her copy of The Daily Prophet.

A frown took up residence on Poppy Pomfrey's face at the comment, arms crossed in discontent. "That doesn't make much sense. Why enact a marriage law if not to ensure the population?"

"Perhaps their trying to corral us before we marry a muggle or a squib," Septima hypothesized in a low murmur, still glued to the Daily Prophet as though reading it a second time would make it all clearer.

"And what will that accomplish?" Pomona shot back, her anger now beginning to grow in place of surprise.

"Preventing further so-called pollution of the bloodlines," was Silvanus Kettleburn's smart remark as he scowled over his own edition of the Daily Prophet.

"I've just got the news. Have you all seen?" Aurora Sinistra announced, slightly out of breath as she rushed into the staffroom with a slim stack of newspapers. Every paper and magazine in the wizarding world, regardless of their core subject, had put up news of the marriage law first and foremost. Aurora passed a different magazine or paper at each witch and wizard in the room, finally passing the last to the herbology professor, "Here, take a look at _Witch Weekly_!"

Pomona snapped the magazine out of the astronomy professor's fingers in a woosh of air, glancing over the usually flashy magazine with sudden dismay.

"Oh, no!" Pomona gasped, looking down at the front of the magazine with wide eyes. "Oh no, no, no!"

" _What_ , Pomona?" Minerva exacted in a razor-sharp tone, glaring in the direction of the paper in the other witch's hand and ignoring the atypical news article on the front of _Transfiguration Today_.

"We _are_ required to have _children_!" the herbology professor fairly well squeaked herself as her eyes roved the same line three times before she gave up and stared at her friend.

"Let me see that," Irma interrupted agitatedly, snatching the paper from Pomona's hand to find the very same line, reading it over with rapid eyes.

Minerva started to pace up and down the length of the room, hands still plastered to her hips and a mutinous expression engraved on her face that would have sent any student with even a hair out of place scurrying back from her path.

"Within eighteen months of the official ceremony and contract of marriage," the librarian read aloud, her voice growing angrier with every word, "all couples united under this legislation will be expected to _produce a child_ so as to further the wizarding community's _future_ _prosperity_!"

"If you don't have a child within their time frame," Poppy commented with a scowl, looking at a medical journal that had also plastered the story on the cover, "I have no doubt they'll require a professional medical assessment to confirm your chances for conception."

The outrage over this part of the new law encompassed every single witch in the room, each and every female wearing a face akin to a dragon protecting its egg.

"Do we even have a choice in husbands?" Bathsheda grumbled from her seat, eyes full of heat as she glared holes through the magazine in the librarian's hands.

"I think there's a choice," Aurora answered, frowning as she looked over Pomona's shoulder at the article blazed all across the cover of _Witch Weekly_.

"They do say something about being able to choose who you marry," Charity remarked from behind _The_ _Quibbler_ , which for once reported a factual article within its strange pages.

"Only after they've put in an application!" Septima corrected sourly as she read over the winding article in Hogsmeade's typically-tiny local news pamphlet.

Usually _The Pygmy Post_ stood four pages, rehashing and summarizing major articles from the Daily Prophet. Today, it featured an enormous, twenty-page essay article about the details of the marriage law, enlightening upon points the Prophet had seen fit to avoid, as well as including interviews with various prominent figures in the community who gave their opinions on the subject. Most were against the new law, something the Prophet had not disclosed in its own dubious publication.

Septima struck up reading again when the law's enacted process became even clearer in the article, "With proper documentation, a binding legal contract, and preliminary medical assessment, a wizard may apply to be the husband of any witch between the ages of seventeen and sixty-seven, given that the preliminary conditions of the wizard's suitable occupation, income, and housing are in place."

"They make it sound like applying for a job!" Irma remarked hotly, barely held back from crumpling the paper in her hands.

"The Ministry will deny any _unsuitable_ suitors," Minerva made her presence known again, rage flowing freely from her presence as she stood with fists clenched into tight wads at her side.

"Unsuitable?" Sybil had the courage to ask in a whimper, hands clutched at her chest in terror.

Taking pity on the young divination professor, Aurora answered as kindly as her own anger would allow, "The ministry is doing this as some foolish way of continuing magical bloodlines and rebuilding the population. They won't allow any wizard they think is 'unworthy' to marry any of the witches affected by the law."

Looking confused still, Sybil then drew Pomona's sympathy as well. "If a muggleborn wizard applies to marry, he will probably be denied. The Ministry will probably try to say he hasn't enough magical blood to continue the wizarding community."

"More likely his application will be strangely forgotten or misplaced," Minerva concluded in dark sarcasm, still facing the fireplace in a towering rage no one dared intrude upon.

"That, too," Pomona sighed deeply, trying in vain to think around the situation.

Not one witch in the room could imagine the sudden turnaround of her life in this way, leaving the room in deadly silence no one felt ready to break.

In the middle of the sudden quiet, the staffroom door wrenched open as Albus Dumbledore walked through at a quick pace.

"Have you heard anything new about this ridiculous law, Headmaster?" Filius spoke up first. "Surely they cannot do this to our ladies? I mean, without their consent…!"

Smiling kindly at the charms professor's admiration and respect for the witches they worked with every day, Albus responded calmly, "Indeed I hope not, Filius. The Wizengamot is in quite a swot over the presentation of this law. But it will take some time to reason it out. A great many disagree with its parameters or its age range… but many are too afraid of the war's degenerative aftereffects to consider personal choice an important factor, I fear."

"Oh, this just gets better," Irma rolled her eyes frustratedly, slouching in her chair.

"So, just be sure on this…" Rolanda verified with the famed wizard, voice full of repressed heat as she ticked off items on her fingers, "They expect wizards to apply for marriages to virtually any witch on the market, make us take whatever pureblood marriage applications they'll let through, ensure a contract so we can't get divorced without consequence, force us to sleep with a man we would never choose to marry, and have his child within a year-and-a-half. Am I missing anything?"

"I believe you are, Rolanda," Albus sighed deep in his chest as the facts were laid out in their simplest terms. "For if either part of the law is not followed, there is a fine to be paid."

"Only by the witch?" Bathsheda wanted confirmed, eyes narrowed in knowing anger.

"Only by the witch," Albus nodded, frowning at the idea.

"How much?" Pomona and Rolanda asked at the same time, both clearly ready and willing to pay whatever they needed to in order to avoid the impossible law.

"More than twice as much as your annual salary," the Headmaster confessed unhappily, bringing gasps and wide eyes from everyone in the room.

"How long do they give you to pay it?" Aurora inquired seriously.

"One year," Dumbledore replied as steadily as he could under the circumstances. "Unfortunately, it is to be reapplied every year the witch does not comply with the law. It cannot be paid by anyone else. And if a witch who falls under the law takes out a loan from Gringotts or any other institution during that year, their payment is void and they will be imprisoned for forfeiture."

"But that's… that's barbaric!" Charity blurted out incredulously, incurring nods from every stunned face in the room.

"This is insane!" Minerva raged her fury as she spun on her heel with hell in her gaze. "We're not criminals! We're not _cows_ to be sold at auction!"

The Headmaster moved beside Minerva's erect form before reaching out to grasp her arms with great gentleness that contrasted vibrantly with her trembling form.

"I know, Minerva, I truly do," Albus interrupted further speech firmly. "We must work around it. We must find any opportunity with which to fight it. But I will need your help wading through this mess. Could you work with me now? Can you set aside your outrage long enough to help me find every loophole possible? I know you did exactly that when you worked there. No matter how long it has been, you have always had an eye for such things and that is the kind of expertise I need now."

Struggling mightily with her own composure, Minerva's eyes finally shuttered against her outrage and she squared her shoulders. "Of course, Albus."

Smiling kindly at his widowed deputy, Albus squeezed her arm with a comforting hand before turning to the rest of the room with a strong voice, "We will forgo the final staff meeting this year. Work all of your academia through correspondence with Minerva or myself. Whatever time you have outside of that, use it to scour every available piece of information about marriage laws or their ilk. Research everything. Please make all possible notes and conclusions you draw. I am relying on every one of you – you who are intelligent, educated, and respectable individuals – to help abolish this mindlessly bigoted, restrictive law. We will need all the support we can muster."

Nods sprung across the room, even the dark corner wherein Severus had holed himself up, and Albus nodded in return. "Then I leave you to your own devices. Good evening, professors."

Having said that, the headmaster reached for his deputy's arm and gently led her out of the room by her elbow, leaving behind a flurry of activity as wizarding Britain's finest educators set to work disestablishing the Ministry of Magic's overreaching arm.

* * *

A/N: To be continued…


End file.
